Corruption in Latin America

Corruption1, a moral impurity or deviation from an ideal, its an activity strongly related with Government or Political actions. There is an eternal fight against corruption where many voluntary agreements within industries and countries are taking places in order to eradicate corruption issues that are affecting many countries around the world. These voluntary agreements promoted by NGOs, activists and political movements, bring more advantages or positive effects to a country than disadvantages within an industry.

There are many cases where activist movements promoted by civil society and NGOs have pushed actions fighting for a good cause turning into a legal or formal institution recognized within and industry and among countries. Kimberly Process is one of these causes, which show how they have fought against how African countries trade diamonds creating continuous civil wars and human abuse2. Bringing awareness to the world of what was happening in Africa to get diamonds, brought positive impact founding the KP organization, which seeks to control, approve and regulate diamonds trade. KP achieved to controls diamonds mining by almost eradicating wars.
Another positive example of legal actions against deviated activities is the foundation of EITI (Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) aimed to promote transparency information about payments, inflows and outflows generated by natural resources (oil, gas and mining). It claims to Governments to apply veracity and transparency through financial information of public operations in other to build trust and eradicate corruption. Oil producer countries are highly exposed to embezzlement but in the case of Timor-Leste5, which incorporated EITI regulations, brought many advantages to the country. Not only generated trust among society and worldwide but also helped to improve its economic situation by incentivizing public programs to help children and poverty.

On the other hand, these movements could